Food-Borne Illness

The Center for Disease Control says that food-borne illness strikes 76 million people each year in the United States. The statistics show that food-borne illness is on the increase. These illness rates are 34 percent higher than they were in 1948.
Some foods such as shellfish and the meat and milk of animals can be very dangerous to health if eaten raw. The Food and Drug Administration lists the following bacteria that cause food-borne illnesses.
Campylobacter: Found in raw and undercooked meat such as beef, poultry and shellfish, raw milk and contaminated water.
Clostridium botulinum: Found in vacuum-packed and improperly canned foods. Can be fatal in three to ten days if left untreated.
Clostridium Pefringens: Found in the intestinal tracts of animals and humans. Can contaminate food left for extended periods in steam tables or at room temperature via dust particles. Mostly a danger at buffets and picnics where the food is left at 40 - 140 degrees Fahrenheit for longer than three hours.
Escherichia Coli: Found in undercooked ground beef, raw milk, contaminated water, and occasionally on unwashed fruits and vegetables (can be washed off fruits and vegetables).
Listeria monocytogenes: Found in beef and poultry, improperly processed ice cream, soft cheese, raw milk, and occasionally unwashed leafy vegetables (can be washed off vegetables).
Salmonella: has over 2,300 strains, found in undercooked beef, poultry, eggs, seafood, raw milk and dairy products with 350,000 cases in humans per year.
Shigella: Known to have over 30 types, found in food and water that has been exposed to fecal contamination.
Staphylococcus Aureus: Found in foods that have been handled improperly.
In the August 2004 issue of Readers Digest, the information on the following four pathogens was printed in an article entitled, A Plateful of Trouble.
Campylobacter: (onset of symptoms: 2 - 5 days post-exposure) Infection can kill if it enters the bloodstream. Can also cause arthritis and Guillain-Barre syndrome (an autoimmune disorder). Present in more than half of the raw chicken sold in the United States.
Salmonella: (12 - 72 hours post-exposure) Infection can kill if it enters the bloodstream. Can also cause arthritis and Reiter's syndrome (inflammation of the joints and tendons). Usually transmitted by foods tainted with animal feces.
E. coli type 0157:H7 (1 - 8 days post-exposure) Can cause hemolytic uremic syndrome (which can lead to kidney failure, brain damage, strokes, and death). Survivors often have kidney dysfunction, high blood pressure, seizures, blindness or paralysis. Most often traced to contaminated ground beef.
Listeria monocytogenes (9 - 48 hours post-exposure) Can lead to miscarriage, stillbirth. Affected infants at risk for sepsis, meningitis. Avoid unpasteurized milk and juice and soft cheeses like Brie, feta, and blue. Don't let fluid from hot dog packages drip onto other foods or utensils.
Food-borne bacteria are destroyed by heating foods at high temperatures in the case of animal products and by properly washing fruits and vegetables. Many commercial fruit and vegetable washes are available in health food stores. My favorite is grapefruit seed extract (gse), which also can be used as a dietary supplement to kill microorganisms in the stomach and intestinal tract . I knew a woman who led Cancer Clinic tours in Mexico by van from Southern California. She told me that she was constantly getting sick from the bacteria in the Mexican food until she started taking grapefruit seed extract as a prophylactic. From that day on, she never got sick. I also used this powerful medicine while traveling for two and a half months in India. Most of the time I ate peelable fruits and vegetables. When not easily peelable, I would soak them in a mixture of grapefruit seed extract (gse) and water for twenty minutes. When eating in a restaurant, I ingested the tablets as a prophylactic. Every other tourist I spoke with either had travelers' diarrhea or had had it in the past. I only experienced it twice (for a period of only a few hours) when I neglected to take the gse. I then ingested the gse which quickly took care of the problem. I also supplemented my diet with beneficial intestinal bacteria, such as acidophilus. These bacteria colonize a healthy intestinal tract and fight off harmful bacteria. Unfortunately, antibiotics destroy these health-promoting organisms and leave one more susceptible to harmful bacteria. Thus a cycle of getting sick more and more often occurs and may lead to more serious conditions such as systemic candidiasis and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Zoonoses: Diseases of animals that can be transmitted to people. You can catch these diseases in a variety of ways. Some animal diseases are transmitted only through foods. Medical dictionaries and other sources provide the following terminology for the few diseases listed here. Many other diseases exist that are transmitted to people through foods in addition to the ones listed here.
Scrofula: Tuberculosis of the lymph glands in the neck. Formerly, this disease occurred from drinking milk infected with tuberculosis germs; the condition occurs only rarely today.
Tuberculosis, Bovine: The type found in cattle. It can be transmitted to humans through infected milk.
Trichinosis: A parasitic disease affecting muscles and causing nausea, vomiting, dizziness and diarrhea. It is caused by eating infected pork or ham.
Enterococci Faecium: A dangerous bacterium found in chickens, which is resistant to Vancomycin, one of the strongest, last-resort antibiotics. Fortunately, infections with enterorocci are rare compared to salmonella or campylobacter
Vibrio parahaemolyticus: a seafood-dwelling bacterium that can cause two-day bouts of stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhea.
Bovine Spongiform Encephalophy: Following is the 1992 New American Medical Dictionary's definition of BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy/Mad Cow Disease). BSE is the fatal disease that has affected cows and has been passed on to humans in the United Kingdom. The infectious agent responsible for BSE is called a prion; it latches on to proteins in the brain and changes them. It is now proven to pass from species to species and into man. Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (CJD), the human equivalent of mad cow disease, bears the same genetic markings as those in BSE.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease may have greater public health consequences than the suspected number of confirmed cases might indicate. CJD is not reportable in most states and is often misdiagnosed or omitted from death certificates. Prions are thought to cause CJD. It is extremely difficult to kill these infectious agents. Normal sterilization procedures do not eliminate contamination.
What is it? CJD is a horrendous fatal brain-deteriorating disease for which no treatment or cure exists. Most scientists believe CJD is caused by a prion, which is an abnormal isoform of a host-encoded protein (a protein-based molecule with no RNA or DNA). While there are many forms of CJD, recently, an atypical form, labeled new variant CJD (nvCJD) was discovered which appears to be more closely related to the clinical and pathological correlates of Kuru. (Kuru was discovered in New Guinea and is said to be caused by cannibalism rituals.) nvCJD has been related to BSE or as it is more commonly called, Mad Cow Disease. The incubation period for CJD was thought to be decades; however, recent clinical presentations have shown it could be much less.
Who gets it and how? The consumption of cow flesh is the most common source for the prions to enter the body. CJD affects both men and women worldwide usually between the ages of 50 to 75 years, but can strike at any age. The officially stated mortality rate is one to two deaths per one million of the population per year. However, this figure appears to be an understatement as CJD is often misdiagnosed.
In a study done by Yale University researchers, 13% of Alzheimer patients were found, upon autopsy, to actually have CJD. A similar study performed at the University of Pittsburgh showed over five percent of Alzheimer's patients were CJD victims.
What are the symptoms of CJD? The initial symptoms are subtle and ambiguous and can include insomnia, depression, confusion, personality and behavioral changes, strange physical sensations, balance disorders and/or memory, coordination and visual problems. Rapid progressive dementia and usually myoclonus (involuntary, irregular jerking movements) develop as CJD progresses. Also, language, sight, muscular weakness, swallowing and coordination problems worsen. The patient may appear startled and become rigid. In the final stage, the patient loses all mental and physical functions. The patient may lapse into a coma and usually dies from an infection like pneumonia; precipitated by the bedridden, unconscious state. The duration of CJD from the onset of symptoms to death is usually one year or less.